Tekken 8 | Heihachi Gameplay Trailer

[Moonface]

I hope Paul's hair gets sorted, but if not then at least it has been confirmed his classic hairstyle is a customization option by Harada. Considering how the poor guy has been massacred even since T5 though I won't hold my breath for him to get treated well.

Also I found out that it was intended for more about Tekken 8 to appear at TGA, but Christopher Judge's speech going on for as long as it did forced them to have less time at the event. I'm wondering if maybe this was meant to be shown there, since Keighley said we were going to see raw gameplay footage which isn't what we got really:

[Mr EliteL]

Yeah I've seen the gameplay clips, haven't watched the full video with Harada and Murray after a tournament recently, I was even watching the tourney partly but stopped before the final match, assuming there wasn't going to be anything after and wasn't interested in the outcome. What I have seen gives more hope to the TGA trailer like side-stepping will still be a thing and some other stuff. Noticed it during the initial TGA trailer but stages look longer, not too contained and easy to carry the opponent in a single dragged out combo to a wall. Dislike how everyone got that ability in recent games, but still bet in the future there'll be a combo found to do so. It's fine if it's close to a wall, not a player's back against a wall then carries the opponent to the opposite side wall. Can keep that in T7 but not T8 too if stages are indeed wider. Also no doubt endless/wall-less stages will return too so no worries there.

Getting to hear what Paul says during that Rage Art makes me think he's still going to be the joke he's been for years unfortunately, but I'll at least say I hope it's only the Rage Art he says that or it's changed to something more "badass Paul" which I doubt.

[Moonface]

Getting to hear what Paul says during that Rage Art makes me think he's still going to be the joke he's been for years unfortunately, but I'll at least say I hope it's only the Rage Art he says that or it's changed to something more "badass Paul" which I doubt.

Ugh, yeah, I'd like to hope that he'll just be more ruthless about proving his strength rather than just being all huff and puff like he has been since T5 about it. I feel like if the character stories had stayed how they were being told in T4/T5 that he would have probably had some actual progression on that side of things, but because it all got dropped in T6 nobody really advances as a character anymore unless they're central to the main canon story. Like, T6 could've totally had a story where Paul decides that in the wake of a war going on, he'll fight absolutely anyone he crosses to show off his strength and strives to stop the war by beating Jin to show everyone he's the best. Yeah, it's the same sorta huff and puff thing he's been doing but it would have some actual story aspect to it and would be a good way to mix it in with his T4 and before style character of being an absolute badass but wanting to show he's now the strongest by taking on anyone in a world where you could just fight any bastard you want to due to a war.

I wanted to come up with what he could've had for a story in T7 that takes his story arc that starts in T4 further but I don't have enough knowledge of that games story/world setting to just come up with one on the fly like I did for T6.

[Mr EliteL]

The world is still in the middle of a war, some places still have daily life though and the main story characters go about doing their thing. Heihachi and Kazuya were riling up each other and showing that off to the world, with Akuma stepping in, causing ordinary people panic. Although there wasn't much actually showing that as none of the actual characters are, well, normal. Except the...narrator, who's like Miguel in losing family to the war but less said about him the better, hated his moments in the story but got an idea of how people outside it all found it.

Paul had two endings sorta, his own with Panda in the tournament that didn't mean anything. If he won, he gets booed and audience throws litter at him. In Panda's version he loses and gets stomped on by Panda as she leaves. The other episode he's included in Law's attempting to fight Feng Wei but they both flee when he gets up after double teaming him, which really sucked. Nowhere near what the T1-T4 Paul would have done, he would've stuck around to properly challenge Feng, with or without Law. I feel Law would've done the same too, either could've had a spectacle of a fight with Feng. Or if Paul can beat Kuma, should be able to beat Panda or better yet something else happens with him. T7 budget was poor though so no wonder side characters got poorly represented.

[Moonface]

Paul had two endings sorta, his own with Panda in the tournament that didn't mean anything. If he won, he gets booed and audience throws litter at him. In Panda's version he loses and gets stomped on by Panda as she leaves. The other episode he's included in Law's attempting to fight Feng Wei but they both flee when he gets up after double teaming him, which really sucked. Nowhere near what the T1-T4 Paul would have done, he would've stuck around to properly challenge Feng, with or without Law. I feel Law would've done the same too, either could've had a spectacle of a fight with Feng. Or if Paul can beat Kuma, should be able to beat Panda or better yet something else happens with him. T7 budget was poor though so no wonder side characters got poorly represented.

Oof, that Feng ending sounds really rough. It's worse when you consider that Paul constantly shouts that he's the "strongest fighter in the universe" but then will run from a fight. Obviously the developers are using it for comedic reasons but I feel that stuff should be reserved for non-canon entries like the Tag games.

I decided to watch all of Paul's prologues to see better how the games initially show him in each entry, since the epilogues aren't all canon plus it's not exactly a good idea to use them for Paul when the tone of the epilogues for most characters become gags in T5+ (just remembered the Mishima ones with the rockets...). His T5 one is rather simple with him losing in a moment of carelessness and training to not let it happen again, and I'd be fine with that being all he has for that game if not for the stark contrast that prologue has with him constantly bragging throughout his campaign; someone who learned the hard way to not be careless shouldn't then be acting like a big shot who has a strong chance of being careless again through over-confidence.
His T6 prologue makes little sense to me though, because out of nowhere he suddenly has a ton of debt and that was apparently what he wanted to win in T5 for, yet T5 never makes any such claim. His motivation in that game is just to redeem himself after his actions in T4, and even that game doesn't claim he has a debt; it just says his dojo went out of business from lack of students. Hell, him choosing to enter T6 as a team could have worked if it was done off the back of him feeling wronged by the previous tournaments, since he does actually get dicked over during T3, and could even be a sign of him getting desperate due to his age or something and starting to be consumed by winning and doing anything to get it. T7 could have possibly been a story of how he never got to fight Kazuya in T4 and is driven to do it here not just for the chance he never got, but to also prove himself by defeating a very notable threat to the world at the same time. His earlier character has so much to do with Kazuya and it just seems to get abandoned for no good reason.

Also, I never knew T7 had a poor budget. I'm curious why since I didn't think Tekken had performed poorly sales wise at any time to have struggles with financing.

[Mr EliteL]

(Paul stuff)

Also, I never knew T7 had a poor budget. I'm curious why since I didn't think Tekken had performed poorly sales wise at any time to have struggles with financing.

Yeah, that's something that could've happened with Paul for T7. Instead we got Shaheen who had an agenda with Kazuya although for different reasons. Kazuya will have a target on his head for 8, so maybe here finally Paul sides with the ones going after him, and he'll be more serious about it.

About the budget, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 performed under expected with a low 1.5 million sales. Even though T6 was 2mill over that with 3.5, 1.5 was apparently too low to give a free pass to continue, so Harada had to really convince the higher ups to try and bring Tekken back with 7. They weren't given as much budget this time just in case T7 flopped. The popularity allowed the DLC packs to drop which helped push T7 even further. 
Yup Tekken could've ended at Tag2 if he failed to even get the game off the starting line, and just recently last month T7 hit 10 million (which I just found out myself), T3 being second highest with 8.2 sales.

[Moonface]

Not surprised TTT2 didn't sell well, since I think the direction T6 took probably rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. I know that I really hated the Scenario Mode that T6 pushed, and stuff like load times were terrible because every loading screen would feature the actual in-game model of the fighters, including any customizations, which meant the loading screen had to load things for itself before even loading the actual match. I'm glad they ditched that awful idea going forward but those loading screens are up there with Crash Bandicoot: Wrath of Cortex for me when it comes to really bad ones.

[Moonface]

Tekken 8 | New Gameplay Mechanics Introduction + Nina Trailer
To prepare players for the new gameplay mechanics that will be introduced in Tekken 8, Bandai Namco have put out a video showcasing all of them:



Additionally, a new trailer has given us our first look at Nina Williams:

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Oh god I am so checked out after that Nina trailer. What is that Ada Wong/Bayonetta rip-off thing they're trying to do with her and the dual-pistols? Not a fan of this massive visual overhauls certain characters are getting for a game that in timeline is probably right after T7, while T4 was a massive gap in time and nobody in that got so overhauled they barely resemble their old design.
And that announcer is horrible, straight up. I can't imagine that voice saying "Fight!" at the start of battles when it sounds so campy and happy-go-lucky in a game that's going for this dark, gritty feeling.

[Mr EliteL]

Yeah the announcer is easily the worst thing, definitely needs to be deeper. T7's was OK or tolerable but this...geez. Hope it gets changed.

Nina's new design is...well I gotta admit I didn't recognise it would be her straight off and thought perhaps a new character, it had to actually say it was Nina for me to realise. Although the purple clothing she has under and her blond hair should've been a give away. I'm mostly not bothered by it but they could've kept her ponytail hairstyle to keep her more iconic perhaps.

They played with weapons in T7 with Negan, Noctis who were like Yoshimitsu but used their weapon a lot more, then Anna although it was reserved to her Rage Art, but most notable Leeroy who had his one-use cane per match. So perhaps they'll be more like Leeroy's for characters who can use weapons. Or like Yoshimitsu who's already had a sword since T1 (also Kunimitsu using dagger/knife/kunai) but only uses it on a number of moves and not the majority like Negan/Noctis. Or like Alisa using chainsaws, but she has to go into a stance for that. As Nina's an assassin already it makes sense she has a type of weapon so guns, Law has nunchaku as he's based on Bruce Lee. Jack has a rocket launcher or whatever it was, he's a robot or rather a military robot now under Kazuya (G Corporation). Makes me wonder who else will gain a weapon this time. Bryan no doubt, he likes using parts of scenery like...girders . Also, everyone can get a weapon before via customisation (T6, Tag2, T7) but those were always slow so weren't a huge game changer.

The biggest change now is the Heat System, which we got a glimpse of in the second T8 trailer and more in-depth now. The mechanic will have a bigger effect on a round now, if they are to be used each round like Rage Drive/Arts were. It can be activated at the beginning of a fight, lasts ten seconds and if the user attacks, it halts the ten seconds which sounds too much (the halting). There's a moment in the video showing King doing a grab move while in the Heat mechanic that the gauge stops during, which for a grab move it should do, but there's a brief moment after the gauge didn't start lowering again while in his neutral stance (25:00). If the character is in neutral stance, that gauge really should continue to lower. Also the many options Heat has, it's good to limit that so you have to strategize what you want to do with it and when, for that the gauge needs to be stricter.

I like they're trying something new though, didn't want basically Tekken 7 back but at the same time I'll wait and see what the Testers at Evo Japan come up with, and hope they're able to give feedback to the game designers and they'll polish up what they think. Slightly annoying it's a location test but I imagined they wanted to have tournament players have a go for now. T8 won't be released for a while, 2024 earliest so still time, plus plenty of character announcements and more in between.

[Moonface]

I think my problem with Nina's guns is just how her use of them seems very Bayonetta like. I'm thinking of other characters more than I am of her, which just doesn't seem right when she isn't a tribute character like Law or Wulong are. Just seems odd to me for a character to seem to need to lean on tributes or references after 7+ games of being their own character.

If everyone gets a weapon added to their move set, I'd like Paul to use a bike chain but I bet he ends up using that stupid climbing rope he has now instead because Azazel-forbid he gets any good treatment of his original character anymore.

The recovery system reminds me of the "rally system" in Bloodborne, where when you take damage you have a period of time to recover lost health by immediately attacking instead of going on the defensive. I actually like the look of that new system here. As for the Heat System, I like the concept of it and that there are ways to fight back better with the way Power Crush has been done for this game, since at first I was really concerned Heat would just turn matches into the nightmare that was non-stop aerial juggling in T6.

[Mr EliteL]

Ah yeah the acrobatics with the use of guns. I suppose they wanted her to be flashy instead of stand with gun and shoot, but just looks like other characters not in Tekken. Yeah, looks like Paul may use the rope unless that's just there for show like other weapons or tools on a character's outfit used to be.

I saw some people watching mention that about Bloodborne and the recovery style. Just want to see a full match between two sides properly fighting instead of a demonstration for how it'll look.

[Moonface]

Just want to see a full match between two sides properly fighting instead of a demonstration for how it'll look.

Same. I really want to see how balanced Heat actually is, because I just expect it to have a lot of cases where it gets activated and stays active for an entire round because it seems the only way to counter it is to counter-attack, and that's not necessarily easy to do if you don't have enough knowledge to read openings.

[Mr EliteL]

Gameplay trailer out of nowhere, showing off Kazuya Mishima with new moves, animations, Heat and Rage Art.

Graphics is certainly improving since the TGA trailer here. Kazuya now having moves incorporating his Devil without needing to be in Rage (Drive), as well as it being in in Heat mode too, plus his Rage Art looks much better than his T7 one. Probably next trailer will be at Evo Japan (March 31st-2nd April), or perhaps another will drop suddenly in between now and then.

Can't wait for Lee and...an announcement for Team Battle...PLEASE.

[Moonface]

Yeah, really unexpected to see a trailer drop but also I'd actually like it if T8 pulls a Smash Ultimate and we get a random character trailer drop every so often of already confirmed characters outside of notable events, and then we get new things shown for events.

I haven't looked to confirm it but I get the feeling the visual effects on move hits has been toned down from before, since it didn't look so busy that I would immediately use the option to turn it off. Also really cool to see a map based on Times Square; i don't know if any real life locales are present in the Tekken universe but the map aesthetic reminded me of that one outdoor street arena in Tekken 4.

[Mr EliteL]

Yeah effects does seem toned down, the only one left to reduce more is at 1:03 where there's too much going on in the first hit after the Heat rush-in. Everything else is better, but I knew they'd get toned down anyway or the fight would just be a clustered mess over each fighter.